There was a time, not that long ago, when engine dynos were considered a black art. Not everyone believed in what the dyno had to offer, and some thought of dynos as nothing more than hocus-pocus. Aren't you glad we don't live in those dark ages anymore? Today, dynos are everywhere and the reality of dyno racing-i.e. trying to make more and more power on the dyno, just like trying to go faster and faster on the track-has become an art form of its own. At SUPER CHEVY we may not have our own dyno, but we still wanted to be able to test any and every part we could think of, just to see what would happen.

And we wanted to get you involved in the most important aspects of our tests. So we built an engine and crowned it Danger Mouse (DM), in reference to the fact that it will be risking its life just to test any hair-brained idea we might come up with. Then, we asked you to send in your ideas on what we should test next. So far it's been fantastic. Your initial response was a bit skeptical, and some sent letters calling us fools, claiming that there's no way we'd ever test their ideas. These same folks submitted ideas for engine combinations that we knew from previous testing wouldn't work. So in fact, a few of the nay-sayers were correct. We won't test every idea, just the ones that make sense. But we've also gotten tons of great ideas from your letters and can't wait to see more. So keep sending them in.

With more than six months of testing behind us, we thought now would be a good time to recap the highlights of each test to show you some of the best combinations to build. Basically, what we're offering in this month's installment are recipes for how to get your street small-block to produce anywhere from 300 to 425-plus hp and more than 440 lb-ft of torque, all on a budget and all with easy-to-find, off-the-shelf parts.

3/7

Danger Mouse had to be strong to survive. We spared no expense and equipped DM to handle the toughest assignments with a World Products four-bolt Motown block.

Racap From The BeginningFrom the outset we knew DM would see a lot of abuse, and we've logged over 275 full-throttle pulls, along with countless, unmeasured others, without a single failure. Such reliability can only be attributed to one cause, the best parts. When building DM, we stressed the importance of selecting the highest-quality components to ensure a long dyno life. The World Products Motown four-bolt block, complete Lunati forged rotating assembly, and Milodon high-volume oil system have performed flawlessly and helped DM produce consistent results month after month, and we thank them for it.

Since no dyno comparison of this type would be worth diddly if we didn't have some stock power figures to base our results on, we first equipped DM with the barest of bone-stock top-end parts. A set of reconditioned factory-iron "camel hump" heads (casting No. 461) from Powerhouse Engine Components breathed through a bone-stock iron GM intake fueled by a professionally prepped Q-jet from the Carb Shop. The reason we chose this carb was to avoid the hassles of spending hours tuning the carb on the dyno, and the Carb Shop Q-jet worked flawlessly, fueling DM into the 350-plus-hp range. After we felt we had a reliable stock baseline to compare figures to, we dove head-first into testing cams, cylinder heads, carbs, rocker arms, spacers, and manifolds, because that's what we felt most of you would like to see.

We've learned a lot from these tests and are sure we'll learn plenty more. Soon we plan to start applying the pressure to DM when we go with blowers and nitrous oxide setups to prove their worth. We'll also start messing around with bottom-end components, changing pistons and rod lengths to see what effect they can have on a stock-stroke small-block. So, as we've asked you every month for more than half a year now, send us your ideas, thoughts, comments, and criticisms for DM. Otherwise, we'll be left to our own devices to figure out what to do next.

MORE PHOTOS

Danger Mouse had to be strong to survive. We spared no expense and equipped DM to handle the toughest assignments with a World Products four-bolt Motown block.

The rotating assembly also had to be up to the task, so we chose a complete Lunati forged kit with a 3.48-inch stroke crank and 5.7-inch rods. The Lunati pistons have four-valve reliefs and have yielded between 8.9 and 9.4:1, depending on the cylinder heads used.

Danger Mouse has seen four different cams so far, and it loved every one of them. Even though it keeps making more power and revving higher the bigger we go, we're still well within the realm of street-worthy cams with these tests.

Edelbrock told us they've worked very hard to ensure equal runner sizes in all its Performer RPM Air Gap manifolds. We certainly believe them, because bolting this manifold on netted us the single largest horsepower and torque gains from any test yet.

GM's Vortec iron cylinder heads are cheap and powerful. Pictured here are all the parts you'll have to buy to run the Vortecs, because they won't work with the regular parts you may have lying around.